9 Die in Palestinian Attack in Gaza Strip

By STEVEN ERLANGER

Published: January 14, 2005

At least three Palestinians detonated a truck bomb and then attacked Israelis late Thursday night at a busy crossing point in the Gaza Strip, in an attack coordinated with other militants who fired mortars and automatic weapons at Israeli soldiers, the Israeli Army said Friday morning.

Six Israeli civilians and three Palestinian militants were killed during the attack, according to the Israeli Army and news media and Palestinian medics. Another 10 people were wounded, five of them Israelis and two seriously.

The attack took place just before 11 p.m. at the Karni crossing, where farm produce and other goods enter and leave the Gaza Strip. The militants placed a 300-pound bomb by the terminal wall that divides the Israeli and Palestinian sides and detonated it minutes before closing time, the Israeli military said. Three Palestinians then entered the Israeli side of the terminal, firing their weapons at Israeli civilians and soldiers. During the evacuation of the wounded, mortars were fired at Israeli troops.

Early Israeli and wire agency reports of suicide bombers were inaccurate, the army said.

Thursday's large and well-organized attack was a sharp riposte to efforts by the newly elected Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to arrange an end to violence.

Mr. Abbas, who was elected on Sunday, has publicly called for a halt in attacks against Israel as counterproductive to the formation of an independent Palestinian state, and he has been engaged in a ''national dialogue'' with various armed groups to agree on a cease-fire. They include Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a group that is part of his own Fatah movement, as well as Islamic radical groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The violence is a slap at Mr. Abbas and shows some of the challenge he faces in replacing the late Yasir Arafat, who was a hero to the fighters.

Three Palestinian militant groups claimed joint responsibility for the attack, including Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees. That claim represents an effort to group local militants in joint operations.

The operating hours at Karni were recently increased to allow more goods to cross, in an Israeli move to help Mr. Abbas by slightly loosening its tight grip on Gaza.

The gunfire lasted until nearly midnight, making it difficult for ambulances to reach the scene. Last week, days before the election, a heavily armed Palestinian attacked at the Erez checkpoint in northern Gaza, blowing a hole in a tunnel and firing grenades and a rifle at Israeli soldiers, who finally shot him dead.

Early Friday morning, some two hours after the Karni attack, Israeli helicopter gunships fired rockets at the Deir al-Balah refugee camp in central Gaza, where the militants involved in the attack were thought to have lived. Palestinians said at least one rocket hit a building run by a charity with links to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Israelis say that militants live among ordinary refugees, that the building was used by militants and that Hamas uses its significant charity arm as a cover for its armed wing.

Israeli tanks also fired at targets south of Gaza City, residents said.

Israeli military intelligence has predicted increasing violence as Israel prepares to dismantle its 21 settlements in Gaza this summer and redeploy its troops, in an effort by the Palestinian militants to make it seem that Israel is withdrawing under fire and defeated.

The Israeli government insists it will not compromise on security, in Gaza or elsewhere, and will respond to military and terrorist attacks in force.

At the same time, Israeli officials say they are trying to avoid making Mr. Abbas's job harder and are willing to respond in kind to a cessation of violence.

They say they will hand over responsibility for public security to Palestinian Authority forces in Gaza and in the major population centers of the West Bank as soon as the Palestinians are ready.

Mr. Abbas has vowed to reorganize the various rival Palestinian security forces into three branches under single control, and to incorporate a number of the armed fighters into the police.

On Thursday, Mr. Abbas told Christian clergymen he would move ahead to carry out security reforms and commitments under the first stage of the so-called road map, a peace plan adopted in 2003 by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

''The road map starts with security commitments and eventually deals with final-status issues, like borders and Jerusalem,'' Mr. Abbas said. ''We are ready to implement our commitments, and we hope the Israeli side will do the same.''

But Israel is also insisting that any cease-fire, should Mr. Abbas succeed in producing one, be followed by the dismantling of the core structures of the armed groups.

''The question now is whether he has the will and determination to bring Palestinian terror to an end,'' said Israel's foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, in a news conference on Thursday. ''His test is now.''

The Israelis want to see Hamas and groups like it disarmed, illegal weapons confiscated and factories to make rudimentary Qassam rockets dismantled.

But Palestinian and Western officials who have spoken in the last few days to Mr. Abbas say he is unwilling to confront the armed groups now or to set off a civil war, but instead is concentrating on persuading them to abide by a cease-fire.

But violence in Gaza both on Wednesday and Thursday night does not augur well for Mr. Abbas, and also give evidence of the lack of cohesion among the armed Palestinians.

Earlier in the day, Israeli troops in Gaza killed two Palestinians, one of whom was driving a pregnant neighbor and her husband to a hospital. According to the army, the man was speeding in his car toward a platoon in Beit Lahiya that was hunting for wanted militants and ignored calls and warning shots to stop. The husband was wounded and the woman later gave birth to a boy.

Another man was killed as troops raided the Bureij refugee camp. The Israeli Army said he was armed and a member of the Popular Resistance Committee.

On the West Bank, in Hebron, Israeli forces arrested Khalil Mahsin, the founder of the Islamic Jihad branch there. He has been wanted for more than eight years for organizing numerous terrorist attacks, the army said.

Also Thursday, Nir Levi, a team commander in the Israeli border guards, was sentenced to 14 months in prison. He was convicted of having abused two Palestinians in Abu Dis, a village east of Jerusalem, last September. He and four policemen under his command beat one of the men and stuck the barrel of a gun into his mouth.

Photo: A victim of a Gaza Strip attack late yesterday by several militants. (Photo by Yehuda Lahiani/Reuters)